I am currently working on a project funded by Horticultural LINK to look at the establishment, seasonality and machine harvestability of 40 different blueberry varieties across five locations in the UK. Fruit quality composition (fruit size, colour, pH, juice content and sensory characteristics) are being examined so that cultivars with the most appropriate qualities can be identified for the UK fresh and processing markets
To date there is no publically available linkage map for tetraploid blueberry that has good coverage of co-dominant genetic markers that are specifically targeted towards identifying fruit quality attributes defined as important targets by UK consumers of both fresh and processed blueberry fruit.
By linking the phenotype to genotype a genetic framework for future crop improvement using marker assisted breeding will be established and this should greatly increase the speed and precision of blueberry breeding. Project collaboration with the Specialty Crop Research Initiative-funded project with partners based across America.
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-0494